These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. The law should reflect that, Legacy of Wounded Knee occupation lives on 50 years later, Holy Queer author seeks Black church inclusion beyond singing with choir, Three big numbers that tell the story of secularization in America. 1. In a statement posted on her website, Jennifer Lyell, who is now 41 and works for a major Christian book publisher, said Sills first "sexually acted" against her on a mission trip in 2004 and. This led to a general understanding that what happened between Dr. David Sills and Ms. Jennifer Lyell was a consensual affair. A clergy person has enormous power. Since Mohler made a public comment just a few days ago, surely, he now has an obligation to answer this important question. It presented its report just prior to the SBCs annual meeting last summer.). Want to help your child build lasting, meaningful friendships? Part of Lyells reason for being "compliant at times" and remaining silent for as long as she did, she stated, was because she became like part of [Sills] family and feared the collateral damage that telling would cause for those around him. In her statement, Lyell accused Sills of grooming and taking advantage of his student.. Jennifer Lyell, who now works as an executive for LifeWay Christian Resources, posted a confession online last week claiming how Sills, who has been married for 30 years and has three grandchildren, sexually abused her and even groomed her from the time she was a master of divinity student until just a few years ago. But Mohler confirmed that Lyell shared allegations with him in May 2018 and that Southern, as Lyell stated, immediately took action., Lyell said in her statement, The denominational institutions, the local church, and the missions agency [Sills led] ultimately believed me, supported me, and took the action for which they were responsible., Baptist Press reported Sills resignation in June 2018 based on reporting by North Carolinas Biblical Recorder news journal, which cited a statement from the seminary affirming that Mohler received the resignation of Dr. David Sills from the Southern Seminary faculty on May 23, 2018., It further stated, Southern Seminary is committed to the highest standards of both principle and policy. She did so after learning her abuser, former Southern Baptist seminary professor, author, and missionary David Sills, had recently returned to ministry. How did Bob Smietana avoid being named in this lawsuit? (RNS) A former seminary professor and missionary who admitted sexual misconduct has sued a gaggle of Southern Baptist Conference leaders and entities, claiming they conspired with an abuse survivor to break his repute. And because of their power and influence, pastors and other religious leaders have a responsibility to set up boundaries in their relationships with other people. Reid, 59, SEBTS senior professor of . I have never been unwilling to be questioned when making allegations that arent only moral, but are also criminal and Im extremely thankful that all parties who received and investigated my allegations did press me for details necessary to understand what I was alleging given my age and the fact it was not a single occurrence as well as that I did not report anything to them for a very long time.. Mohler said his encouragement from the start in any case such as this is that authorities be contacted and that only law enforcement should judge whether laws may have been violated in such situations. He said that he is "brokenhearted over the reality" of the situation. The audio discussion features Jennifer Lyell speaking to Ron Henzel and Don Veinot of Midwest Outreach. Veinot and his senior researcher, Ron Henzel, had conducted a video interview with Lyell and wrote about it on their blog under the headline Does Abuse Absolve Adultery? There are plenty of reasons to stay silent in a situation such as this. Lyell urged denominational leaders as well as pastors to recognize the responsibility they have to protect survivors from more harm when they come forward. she disclosed to her boss at Lifeway that a former professor named David Sills had first "sexually acted . This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. They simply want to push their agenda & cancel anyone who refuses to kowtow to their self-righteous bloviating. In the spring of 2019, Lyell, then a well-respected leader in Christian publishing, decided to publicly disclose that she was a survivor of sexual abuse. And there were aspects of it certainly that I think is something that an abuser can use., Abuse advocate and attorney Rachael Denhollander said that Lyells story reflects a bigger problem with a complementarian culture that defends male leaders but views women leaders and survivors of abuse as expendable., Abuse survivor Rachael Denhollander, right, discusses the Southern Baptist Conventions history of addressing sexual abuse with ERLC President Russell Moore at the Caring Well conference in Dallas, on Oct. 4, 2019. But I am a victim nonetheless.. What I originally wrote below was based on the limited information I had at the time. That was untrue. He said that he could fix it by me becoming part of his family and then once I was part of his family, that sort of thing would never happen again, she continued. David Sills, an ex-Southern Baptist Convention seminary professor accused of sexual abuse by his former student filed a defamation suit in Alabama against her and several SBC entities. However, not everyone has believed a sexual abuse crisis exists in the SBC. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. Want to share a story? Venue is appropriate in this court because defendant Ed Litton is a resident citizen of Mobile County, Alabama., Guidepost report documents pattern of ignoring, denying and deflecting on sexual abuse claims in SBC, SBC Executive Committee publicly apologizes to sexual abuse survivor, SBC report shows how five words turn abuse victim from survivor to whore | Opinion by Marv Knox. It conclusively demonstrated the non-consensual nature of what happened to her. As Veinot explains on the website: Our mission is to give clear answers, and a solid defense of the orthodox biblical faith, to all types of unbelievers atheists, agnostics, as well as members of cults and new religious groups such as the Jehovahs Witnesses, Mormons, the International Churches of Christ, and so on. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Lyell still attends a Southern Baptist church, in large part because of the friendship and support she has received from her pastor and his wife. She graduated from Southern with a master of divinity in 2006 and enrolled in an SBTS doctoral program for one year after that. Abusers in the church have figured out that if they are willing to admit partial, limited wrongdoing and if they are willing to perform apology, repentance and intention to do better, she said, behaving in sexually violent ways doesnt actually diminish their prospects for leadership in the church. It also names Jennifer Lyell, a former seminarian and vice president for Lifeway, who repeatedly alleged Sills was abusive, an allegation Mohler has also made on social media and in . Based on the information we now have I retract any suggestion that Jennifer Lyells physical relationship with David Sills was consensual., By Aug. 3, 2021 about six weeks after the SBC annual meeting at which a Sexual Abuse Task Force was authorized Midwest Christian Outreach issued an update to its post with this note from Henzel: Shortly after this article was published, Jennifer Lyell graciously reached out to us and provided crucial details of her case both to me and to Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc. President Don Veinot. The larger conversation around sexual abuse has dominated SBC life for the past two years and has been addressed by two special task forces, one of which is still working. In June, BP reported Sills also had resigned as president of Reaching and Teaching International Ministries, a missions organization that engages in discipleship and theological education internationally. Lyell feared he would once again have the opportunity to abuse others and wanted to stop that from happening. 2023 Baptist News Global. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". I am not a sinless victim. Defamation?! My thinking was I could just verbally work through your article and clarify/add the information you didnt have or was inaccurate as well as answer the broader questions you asked when the information you had didnt reconcile for you. Get this The Daily Telegraph page for free from Tuesday, July 29, 1975 97S IZIm THE COMPLETE CONSTRUCTION SERVICE HIM 1 Mb CHKlbTENINGb and IN MEMOR1AM Cl 10 Una MARRIAGES DEATHS and . And we met with him within hours of his arrival back in the United States since our policies call for an immediate conversation. Refresher: Sills was man most prominently named as abuser in report. Nine months after The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) professor David Sills resigned for undisclosed reasons, a woman has released a statement of allegations including details of what she describes as sexual abuse by Sills, beginning while she was a Southern Seminary student. It also names Jennifer Lyell, a former seminarian and vice president for Lifeway, who has repeatedly alleged that Sills was abusive, an allegation Mohler has also made on social media and in. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". They also risk losing their relationships with everybody else who has a relationship with that person because when the chips fall, you dont know how theyre going to fall.. at the height of awareness of SBC scandals.' This wasnt by accident; I believe it was by design, Lyell wrote. Guidepost and the SBC are two of 12 total defendants named in the lawsuit that revolves around allegations that David Sills sexually abused Jennifer Lyell starting in 2004, when Lyell was a . Her name appears on 37 pages of the report. The case as outlined by David and Mary Sills directly contradicts the narrative told by Lyell and widely accepted as truth. Why so much outrage over the burning of an LGBT Pride flag? Sills files defamation suit against SBC, Lyell, others MOBILE, Ala. (BP) - A former Southern Baptist seminary professor and his wife have filed suit against the SBC and 10 other individuals and entities connected to the SBC, including Jennifer Lyell and Guidepost Solutions. It was a Zoom call conducted June 6, 2021. Lyell wrote that she first shared her story with her boss at LifeWay and then with Mohler. Henzel told CR that he did not know how the audio was leaked and did not feel comfortable speaking about it. Guidepost and the SBC are two of 12 total defendants named in the lawsuit that revolves around allegations that David Sills sexually abused Jennifer Lyell starting in 2004, when Lyell was. Lyells case is of particular interest because Guidepost did not talk to some described as corroborating the allegations of abuse and because SBC Elites declared on their own authority that this was a case of Sex Abuse. She wrote, "Dr. David Sills, then a tenured professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, first sexually acted against me on a mission trip in 2004, a pattern that continued and escalated . David Pooler, professor of social work at Baylor University, said sexual misconduct by clergy and other religious leaders is often labeled as having an affair. But that description misses the power imbalance at play. David Sills and Mary Sills contend they have been smeared repeatedly in the process and seek monetary damages. Basham says whatever number of actual abuse cases may be found in the SBC, they represent such a small percentage as to be anything but a crisis.. One details Lyells complaint that the video of her interview with Midwest Christian Outreach that was supposed to be kept confidential had been shared with others, including Basham. She said she was a 26-year-old Master of Divinity student when it began. Why Midwest Christian Outreach was interested in such a deep dive into Lyells story is not clear. ", Follow Samuel Smith on Twitter: @IamSamSmith. Nine months after The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) professor David Sills resigned for undisclosed reasons, a woman has released a statement of allegations including details of what she describes as sexual abuse by Sills, beginning while she was a Southern Seminary student. Buck, like Ascol, holds no official role in SBC life and has no direct connection to her claims of abuse from Sills. I now realize that despite SBTS handling the situation justly and as I asked without stating the reason for his resignation it led to the exact kind of scenario the SBC is now trying to prevent, she said. Any criticism of complementarianism is seen as a sort of gateway drug into theological liberalism., I think a culture that believes that its righteousness is dependent on preserving and protecting the strictest form of complementarianism is a culture that sees women as a threat, sees women as a risk, sees women as more likely to sin, she said. On July 6th, this story would resurface because Bob Smietana, a liberal reporter of the pagan Religious News Service wrote an apologetic for Jennifer Lyell, When abuse victims are adults . Pooler said church members often become nonprotective bystanders, whose inaction enables abuse to continue and abusers to go unpunished. Jennifer Lyell . The article was eventually retracted, but the damage was done. So she wrote up a statement detailing the abuse and shared it with a reporter from a Christian news organization. In the spring of 2019, Lyell, then a well-respected leader in Christian publishing, decided to publicly disclose that. Things made a little more sense last Friday when a woman named Jennifer Lyell (below) released a statement explaining how she had been engaged in an "inappropriate relationship" with Sills for nearly a decade, beginning when she was his student. So, now the question turns to: Did SBTS President Al Mohler call the police on David Sills as alleged by Lyell? They didnt they just kind of defaulted to me, and then realized later, Oh, crap, we shouldnt have done that., SBC Elites cite distinguished lawyer and Southern Baptist Matthew Martens; however, Martens has written persuasively, Supporters of a constitutional amendment to ban women pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), New intel points to Covid origin in a lab leak, remember when this was a, NAMB PR VP Mike Ebert emerges as key witness in McRaney v. NAMB What will, Leaked audio interview with Jennifer Lyell hits, featured in a new documentary on sex abuse in the SBC, David raped Bathsheba promoter involved in new SEBTS abuse class, SBC Abuse Expert Rachael Denhollander Sided with Amber Heard, SBC Elites defend credibly accused standard to ruin lives, Bart Barber flipflops on pledge to bring vote to ban Women Pastors in SBC, Evangelical Elites lied you to about the origins of Covid, Woke SBC Elites Delete History To Hide Their Schemes. Although the lawsuit was filed in Alabama, David Sills lives in Mississippi. ", As a result of the conversation upon Sills' return, Mohler said "he was no longer a member of the faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary from that time.". "So I want to make very clear that I stand with her in that statement.". Of course, Lyell spoke to multiple media outlets and is featured in a new documentary on sex abuse in the SBC. In his lawsuit filed Nov. 21, Sills claimed Lyells allegedly false claims were repeated in SBC media as an opportunity to improve the appearance and reputation SBCs handling of abuse cases and made him a bona fide scapegoat.. In February, the top-ranked Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) did something that's almost unprecedented: they apologized and offered a monetary settlement to Jennifer Lyell, who for years had been abused by an SBC seminary professor. Sills contends he was made a scapegoat in a denomination reeling from other, larger claims of sexual abuse. In a grievance filed Nov. 21 within the Circuit Courtroom of Cell, Alabama, David Sills, a former professor of missions and [] Lyell told Baptist Press she has attempted to contact the Louisville Metro Police Departments Special Victims Unit. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. In the rush to virtue signal support for Jennifer Lyell, SBC pastor Eric Geiger made a public allegation against Mary Sills, wife of David Sills. The reason that a professor was able to continue grooming and taking advantage of his student was because I became like part of his family. Jen came forward at incredible personal cost to herself, to defend those who had no voice, Denhollander said. Moore said he and his wife are friends of Lyell and he described her as one of the strongest, most courageous and brilliant leaders I know. He hopes she will eventually return to a leadership role in the church. At the time, she was a 26-year-old master of divinity student, and the alleged relationship continued until she was 38, spanning a period in which Lyell moved from Louisville, Ky., to Chicago and then to Nashville, she told BP. And the incidents Lyell describes would have caused the creation of police reports. I deeply regret that anyone could have been led to conclude that it was consensual based on what I wrote.. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". In a filing made in the Mobile, Ala., Circuit Court, David Sills, former pastor of now-closed Woodland Hills Church, Jackson, and his wife Mary Sills allege "defamation, conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and wantonness concerning untrue claims of sexual abuse" initiated by Jennifer Lyell, with whom David Sills I have never been unwilling to be questioned when making allegations that arent only moral, but are also criminal . He also said churches often believe survivors were participants in their abusers sins. Survivors often deal with the trauma of the actual abuse along with a sense of betrayal and rejection from other believers, who often take the side of abusers. Lyells experience reveals the difficulty survivors often face when they try to speak up about their experiences. Im also fine to answer any questions you or the other gentleman has to ensure you have clarity and believe me. David Sills (Photo via Baptist Press) It also names Jennifer Lyell, a former seminarian and vice president for Lifeway, who has repeatedly alleged that Sills was abusive, an allegation Mohler has also made on social media and in an interview for a documentary about the denomination's response to its sexual abuse crisis. It also names Jennifer Lyell, a former seminarian and vice president for Lifeway, who has repeatedly alleged that Sills was abusive, an allegation Mohler has also made on social media and in an interview for a documentary about the denomination's response to its sexual abuse crisis. David Sills, the professor, and his wife, Mary Sills, allege defamation, conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and wantonness in connection with untrue claims of sexual abuse made by Jennifer Lyell in 2021. If I were not to come forward with this letter, a church or ministry who receives Dr. Sills CV and does an internet search for him would have no way to know the truth behind his resignation, she wrote. The leaders who had the information and ability to correct the inaccuracies supported her privately but were publicly silent. she disclosed to her boss at Lifeway that a former professor named David Sills had first "sexually acted" against her without her consent during a mission trip he was leading while she was a seminary student. And now the two competing narratives of what happened between Sills and Lyell likely will add more fuel to the SBCs internal debate over the nature and extent of sexual abuse as a real problem. For example, why did Lyell continue the relationship with the alleged abusers after graduating from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS)? After Baptist News Global broke the news that former seminary professor David Sills and his wife, Mary, filed a defamation lawsuit against the Southern Baptist Convention and 11 other defendants, three high-profile Southern Baptists took to Twitter to highlight one specific section of the 31-page legal document. Yet victims who are not minors must decide for themselves whether to contact authorities, he said. All rights reserved. It looked idyllic on the surface. She lost her reputation, her job and even her health in the process. Instead, for many this incident may have contributed to a perception that the Southern Baptist Convention is not a safe place for sexual abuse survivors to disclose, the statement read. The lawsuit also claims that Sills broke off the relationship and that Lyell continued to pursue him. In fact, she claims in a newly leaked audio recording that she has been vague intentionallyso that the Sills grandchildren wouldnt find out much about this by using Google. Lyells claim that she was abused by David Sills while he was a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary resulted in a controversial news story published by Baptist Press, the denominational news service, which portrayed the relationship as consensual. To date, none of the named defendants has issued a public comment on the lawsuit. David Sills | MOODY PUBLISHERS In her post, the 41-year-old Lyell said that the tenured professor of missions and cultural anthropology first sexually acted against her during a mission trip in 2004. Lawsuit protests the SBC and third-party firm for supporting allegations in a new legal challenge referencing historic abuse report. Prior to the apology's issuance, she has informed SBC Executive Committee Chairman Rolland Slade in October regarding the pending disputes and legal claims she has due to her case. Geiger, senior pastor of Mariners Church in Irvine, Calif., confirmed to BP that Lyell shared her allegations with him. The court filing further claims Lyell maintained the relationship by driving several hundred miles from Nashville, Tenn., to Louisville, Ky. to see Sills. One of Lyells advocates over the past three years has been Mohler, who has publicly stated he believed Lyells story as she has told it. And because they, in a sense, represent God, they have more power than almost any other professional person that works with other people.. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Sills was a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary until his resignation on May 23, 2018. The following year, Jennifer Lyell, a former vice president at Lifeway Christian Resources, told Baptist Press she had been a victim of emotional and sexual abuse by Sills, who had been her professor. All this played out as the SBC addressed the independent report of Guidepost Solutions about a long-term pattern of ignoring or mishandling known cases of sexual abuse in SBC churches and agencies. In essence, defendants saw an opportunity to improve the appearance and reputation of SBCs handling of abuse cases, long under fire, even though there had not been any legitimate and proper investigation into the allegations, nor was Dr. Sills adequately informed of the specific nature and extent of accusations made by Lyell.. But I am a victim nonetheless.. As of earlier today, we declared his one IVP title (in both print and digital formats) as out of print.. If the claims in this suit are true, then it would seem that he is as culpable as any of the other defendants., To which Basham replied: Note, Religion News Service reported that Sills admitted to abuse, though Sills told me through an intermediary that RNS also did not reach out to him before that story was published and he never admitted anything like this., Basham also tweeted a link to the BNG story with this comment: Ive read David/Mary Sills filing against SBC, Guidepost, & number of SBC leaders.